The Silencing

by Kirsten Powers

  Against this real rape culture, the illiberal feminists were mostly silent. Salon.com ran one story on the issue: a brief Associated Press report about how Muslims were outraged by the Rotherham report. Jezebel and Feministing—two prominent illiberal feminist websites—each provided one post. Perhaps they didn’t know what to do with a real “rape culture” because it doesn’t fit into their parochial, imagined dystopia of America, a land where privileged white boys, the junior patriarchy, relentlessly assault female college students.12

  ILLIBERAL FEMINIST “FACTS”

  Illiberal feminists have injected a variety of sketchy statistics into the mainstream media’s bloodstream. The most potent is that women on American campuses are living amidst a “rape epidemic” that their uniformly liberal college administrators have chosen to ignore (for what reason is unclear). Illiberal feminists frequently claim one in five women will be a victim of a sexual assault by the time they graduate from college. So, college campuses are “havens for rape and sexual assault,” where “women are at a higher risk of sexual assault”13 as New York Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has said. The data allegedly proving this comes from the “Campus Sexual Assault Study,”14 a survey of two public universities done over the period of January 2005 to December 2007.15 The narrow web survey was not meant to be proffered as a national statistic, yet politicians and activists have attacked and maligned those who dare to question it.

  Indeed, the one-in-five statistic has repeatedly been shown16 to be inaccurate.17 If it were true it “would mean,” as Emily Yoffe pointed out in Slate, “that young American college women are raped at a rate similar to women in Congo, where rape has been used as a weapon of war.”18 Even Christopher Krebs, who led the Campus Sexual Assault Study, has said, “The one-in-five statistic is not anything we trotted out as a national statistic. But it has certainly been used in that way.”19

  Still, to publicly question any of the illiberal feminist rape statistics is to be demonized as a defender of rape. In June 2014, Pulitzer Prize–winning columnist George Will was widely excoriated, as we saw, for asserting in his Washington Post column that on college campuses victimhood has become a “coveted status.” He called the “rape culture” mantra into question and specifically expressed skepticism about the “one-in-five” statistic.20 At no point did he argue that rapes did not occur on campus or that a woman who had been raped played any role in her attack. No matter: the illiberal feminists wanted his head.

  National Organization for Women President Terry O’Neill said in an interview that “The Washington Post needs to take a break from [Will’s] column, they need to dump him.” She added menacingly, “We want him to back off . . . and we want the The Washington Post to stop carrying his column.”21 Another women’s group, UltraViolet, started a petition to pressure the Post into firing Will. MoveOn.org started another petition with almost identical language that garnered 45,000 signatures.22 The group wrote, “By publishing George Will’s piece, The Washington Post is amplifying some of the most insidious lies that perpetuate rape culture. It’s not just wrong—it’s dangerous. Tell The Washington Post: ‘Rape is real. No one wants to be a victim. Fire George Will.”23 Four Democratic U.S. Senators—Senators Tammy Baldwin, Richard Blumenthal, Robert Casey, and Dianne Feinstein—accused the iconic conservative columnist of “contribut[ing] to the exact culture that discourages reporting and forces victims into hiding and away from much-needed services” in a harshly worded letter.24 Naturally, the senators did not take the time to refute any of Will’s statistics or arguments, or have any good answer to Will’s subsequent point that by broadening the definition of rape one risks trivializing it.25

  HAZY STATISTICS AND ALCOHOL

  As if the one-in-five statistic isn’t bad enough, some feminist groups claim that one-in-four women will be raped by the time they graduate from college. Yoffe debunked that statistic as well.26 This one comes from a Justice Department study “The Sexual Victimization of College Women.”27 Yoffe explained that the actual study “found a completed rape rate among its respondents of 1.7 percent.” From this six-month sample, the researchers extrapolated that 20–25 percent of female college students “might” be raped. To get from 1.7 percent to up to 25 percent, they included the 1.1 percent of women who reported “attempted rape” and then engaged in conjecture28 that should not be part of serious statistical research.

  Yoffe noted that in a footnote in the study29 “the authors acknowledge that asserting that one-quarter of college students ‘might’ be raped is not based on actual evidence.” “These projections are suggestive,” the note says. “To assess accurately the victimization risk for women throughout a college career, longitudinal research following a cohort of female students across time is needed.”

  Following her article, Yoffe was attacked on Twitter as a “longtime rape apologist,” and MRA (Men’s Rights Activist). She was accused of “perpetuating rape culture” while one user asked if her son was “a serial rapist or something.”30 Alexandra Brodsky, the founding co-director of Know Your Title IX, wrote at Feministing that Yoffe was a “rape denialist”31 and tweeted, “There is a special place in hell for women who are Emily Yoffe.”32

  Yoffe has been attacked by illiberal feminists before for suggesting that female college students should be warned about the dangers of drinking too much, because of the connection between alcohol consumption and sexual assault, as confirmed by a study the Slate columnist wrote about in late 2013. The study found that on campus, “Most sexual assaults occurred after women voluntarily consumed alcohol, whereas few occurred after women had been given a drug without their knowledge or consent.”33 Yoffe noted that “Frequently both the man and the woman have been drinking.”

  Yoffe stated, “Let’s be totally clear: Perpetrators are the ones responsible for committing their crimes, and they should be brought to justice. But we are failing to let women know that when they render themselves defenseless, terrible things can be done to them.” She argued in favor of educating female students about the peril in which they place themselves when their judgment is impaired by alcohol over-consumption.

  Guardian columnist Jessica Valenti—founder of Feministing and named one of “the left’s most influential journalists”34 by the Daily Beast—tweeted, “[I] hope Emily Yoffe can sleep well tonight knowing she made the world a little bit safer for rapists” to which “sexpert” Logan Levkoff replied “I can see her telling women to bind their breasts because they may be too ‘appealing’ for certain men, too.”35 Feministing called her article “a rape denialism manifesto.” The UK’s Daily Mail claimed Yoffe was telling women, “Don’t drink if you don’t want to get raped.” One feminist blogger characterized Yoffe’s article as rape “victim blaming.”36 The Yes Means Yes blog called it “rape apologism” that urged women to “negotiat[e] with terrorists.” Salon.com’s Katie McDonough accused her of “blaming assault on women’s drinking.”37

  In a response to the deliberately misleading characterizations of her article, Yoffe quoted University of Virginia Law Professor Anne Coughlin—a feminist—who shared an e-mail she had sent to a student upset by Yoffe’s column. “Heavy consumption of alcohol and rape go hand-in-hand,” wrote Coughlin. “The correlation is staggering, much too significant to ignore. [O]ver the years, I have had students tell me that feminists were doing them a disservice by not raising these questions.” So Coughlin came to believe that it was her job to provide practical advice that included warning female students about the connection between over-consumption of alcohol and rape.38 However obvious and factually based this connection is, it is not a message that the illiberal feminists want women to hear, which is why they demonized Yoffe in an attempt to delegitimize her.

  ILLIBERAL FEMINISM’S CONTEMPT FOR TRUTH

  No story better illustrates illiberal feminists’ contempt for truth than their reaction to the unraveling of the now infamous 2014 Rolling Stone piece about an alleged gang rape of a University of Virginia student by
a group of fraternity brothers. The horrifying story of a woman, “Jackie,” suffering a terrifying and brutal gang rape at a fraternity house drew plenty of national attention and outrage. It also attracted skepticism. Syndicated conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg questioned the UVA story39 and was deemed a rape apologist immediately. The Los Angeles Times—which runs Goldberg’s column—sent out a tweet that read “[Jonah Goldberg’s] column questioning UVA story is the kind of berating that prevents rape victims from coming forward” and linked to a piece trashing both him and his column. When another male journalist questioned the veracity of the story, he was immediately attacked by Jezebel, which ran a story titled, “‘Is the UVA Rape Story a Gigantic Hoax?’ Asks Idiot.”40

  It seems the “idiot” was on to something. Rolling Stone was ultimately forced to retract significant portions of the story. As the story began to unravel, Slate’s Amanda Marcotte went on a Twitter tirade, calling people who discredited the false story “rape apologists.”41 At Salon.com, Katie McDonough wrote, “Because so many of these protests about ethics and transparency are just the latest cover for the same tired bullshit: derailing public conversations about rape so that we will talk about virtually anything else.”42 For illiberal feminists, the truth is secondary and journalists who seek it are clearly up to no good.

  When the article first appeared, Bonnie Gordon, an associate professor of music at UVA, with a special interest in “gender and music,” took to Slate to argue that nobody should be surprised by the story because, “UVA has a rape culture problem. . . .” Look no further, she said, than the fact that, “our sacred founder, Thomas Jefferson, had sex with a 14-year-old enslaved girl. (That’s not consensual.)” More than two hundred years ago. And an allegation that has never been proven.43 She also pointed to a mural in the University’s main auditorium that “depicts . . . a male faculty member standing on a porch and tossing a mostly naked student her bra as his beleaguered wife comes up the stairs.”44 While that certainly sounds inappropriate for a campus, it has nothing to do with rape.

  It turned out that there was plenty to be surprised about in the Rolling Stone article. Rolling Stone, in an apology, explained there were serious discrepancies in Jackie’s account:

  The fraternity has issued a formal statement denying the assault and asserting that there was no “date function or formal event” on the night in question. Jackie herself is now unsure if the man she says lured her into the room where the rape occurred, identified in the story as “Drew,” was a Phi Psi brother. According to the Washington Post, “Drew” actually belongs to a different fraternity and when contacted by the paper, he denied knowing Jackie. Jackie told Rolling Stone that after she was assaulted, she ran into “Drew” at a UVA pool where they both worked as lifeguards. In its statement, Phi Psi says none of its members worked at the pool in the fall of 2012. A friend of Jackie’s (who we were told would not speak to Rolling Stone) told the Washington Post that he found Jackie that night a mile from the school’s fraternities. She did not appear to be “physically injured at the time” but was shaken. She told him that she had been forced to have oral sex with a group of men at a fraternity party, but he does not remember her identifying a specific house. Other friends of Jackie’s told the Washington Post that they now have doubts about her narrative. . . .

  After Rolling Stone apologized for the story,45 Jessica Valenti wrote in the Guardian that she still chose to believe Jackie. “I lose nothing by doing so, even if I’m later proven wrong,” wrote Valenti. “[A]t least I will still be able to sleep at night for having stood by a young woman who may have been through an awful trauma.”46 What about the “trauma” inflicted on the fraternity that was humiliated and actually punished by the university for an incident that it now appears never took place? From bricks thrown through windows to death threats and vandalized property, the fraternity suffered profoundly. The Cavalier Daily reports that members slept in the same room, afraid to be near doors and windows.47 And the ramifications extended beyond Phi Kappa Psi. After the story broke, UVA president Theresa Sullivan suspended all fraternity social events without any due process, a move condemned by both professors and students alike.48 Valenti also complained that people were rushing to “indict” Jackie, as if expecting a journalist to investigate claims of gang rape is an attack upon the person making the claim.

  Facts and fairness don’t move illiberal feminists. Everything is viewed through a preordained narrative—in this case, that frat boys are presumed rapists—and nothing will shake their resolve in believing that to be true. There is no reason to investigate or practice responsible journalism. If a woman says it happened, then write it, print it, and everyone else shut up.

  The Poynter Institute awarded Rolling Stone its “Error of the Year” award for the story. The journalism institute noted that the UVA story, “should go down as one of the most cautionary tales of confirmation bias in journalism.” They recounted how in an interview the writer, “described how she scoured the country for just the right rape story to be the focus of her article. Once she found it, the bias was set to believe it to be true, and to report it in a way the reinforced that.”49 They blasted the magazine and its reporter for cherry-picking the story and failing to verify it. Poynter characterized the magazine’s attempts to downplay their journalistic malfeasance as “shameful.”50

  Yet illiberal feminists continued to defend the story. “We should believe, as a matter of default, what an accuser says,” liberal commentator Zerlina Maxwell wrote in the Washington Post.51 “Ultimately, the costs of wrongly disbelieving a survivor far outweigh the costs of calling someone a rapist.” According to Maxwell, “The accused would have a rough period. He might be suspended from his job; friends might de-friend him on Facebook.” Really? Is that all? If falsely accusing someone of being a rapist isn’t that serious, then how serious is rape itself? Maxwell’s dismissal of the real damage that flows from a false rape accusation is detached from reality. In one case at Harvard, a male grad student was accused of sexual assault and then barred from continuing his studies. The student was later acquitted in court on all six counts of rape and assault, after his accuser was found to be fabricating parts of her story. Even after the acquittal, however, Harvard refused to readmit the student or, as the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education reported, “drop its own charges against him.”52

  When three Duke lacrosse players were accused of gang-raping an exotic dancer at their fraternity house in 2006, the illiberal left convicted them in the court of public opinion. Following their indictment, the students were banned from Duke’s campus by the college president. Even after they were exonerated of the charges, the accused found their lives substantially altered. One of the accused players, David Evans, had his job offer with J.P. Morgan Chase rescinded following his 2006 indictment.53 The other two accused students ended up transferring to other universities.

  Even members of the lacrosse team who weren’t accused of being involved in the incident saw their lives turned upside down. Their season was canceled; their coach forced to resign. One lacrosse player, who sent an e-mail the day of the alleged incident referencing the film American Psycho, was subsequently vilified in the press. According to a 2014 Vanity Fair article, he has had trouble finding gainful employment ever since.54 A complaint brought55 by nearly forty members of the Duke lacrosse team against the university outlined what life was like for them after three of their teammates were accused of rape: “For 13 months in 2006-2007 these students were reviled almost daily in the local and national media as a depraved gang of privileged, white hooligans who had hired a black exotic dancer to perform at a team party, had brutally gang raped and sodomized her in a crowded bathroom, and had joined together in a ‘wall of silence’ to hide the truth of their heinous crimes. But it was a vile and shameful lie, and it caused the plaintiffs tremendous suffering and grievous, lasting injuries.”56

  Zerlina Maxwell isn’t interested in such things. She says, “The cost of di
sbelieving women [who make false accusations] . . . signals that women don’t matter and that they are disposable. . . .” No, it signals that we believe that people are innocent until proven guilty, that an accusation is not the end of the conversation, but the beginning. It signals that we are not an authoritarian society that punishes people without due process. Any person with a son, brother, nephew, husband, or a passing interest in the humanity of men in society should be deeply alarmed by the callous dismissal of the basic rights of men to be presumed innocent.

  During the Duke lacrosse rape case, feminist writer Amanda Marcotte called people defending the accused “rape-loving scum” and characterized legitimate questions about the case as akin to saying, “Can’t a few white boys sexually assault a black woman anymore without people getting all wound up about it? So unfair.”57 She accused columnists David Brooks and Kathleen Parker of writing “rape apologies”58 when they raised issues about the case. A mob of Duke students banged pots and pans outside the house of Provost Peter Lange, who eventually came out to engage them. As the students harassed him, he repeatedly urged respect for due process, saying, “We don’t know the facts of what happened in the house.” “Bullshit!” a protestor cried out immediately in response.59

  In New York magazine, Kurt Anderson60 blasted the New York Times’ biased coverage for abetting the rhetorical lynch mob and quoted one Times reporter saying “I’ve never felt so ill” as he did about the paper’s slanted treatment of the story. The story was just too perfect to resist, let alone investigate fairly: white, privileged men were abusing a black single mother. So facts be damned and saddle up the bias nag, we’re riding herd! Anderson recounted how one Duke associate professor, Wahneema Lubiano gleefully blogged61 about how the lacrosse players “are almost perfect offenders.” Why? Because they are “the exemplars of the upper end of the class hierarchy. . .and the dominant social group on campus.” So, “regardless of the ‘truth’. . . . Whatever happens with the court case, what people are asking is that something changes.”